A blog I started whilst on a GE "Bubble" assignment in Nevada. I'm back in Cambridge (UK) now but still miss the desert and my friends out there.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Uncovered - the great pomegranate conspiracy

Pomegranate's originate in Iran. Funny that.

Today I think I was inadvertantly sucked into a conspiracy aimed at taking down the US economy. Things seemed innocent at first. The work cafe had a bowl of Pomegranates instead of the more normal Apples and Bananas but this, it seemed, was just a bit of diversity. Sienna pointed these fruit out, thinking that as a person from a faraway land I would not know what it was. Actually, it looked suspiciously like a Tunisian Cactus Fruit for my liking so I was prepared to let it go. I believe Tunisian Cactus Fruit is a very much once bitten twice shy kind of food, well, more like, once bitten, mouth fills with gravel kind of fruit. It is easy to simulate eating a cactus fruit, simply fill an old sock with gravel and bite into it. You may wonder where the 'fruit' is, and that would be the same thought you would have eating an actual cactus 'fruit'.

Anyhow, after Sienna had been messing about with this Pomegranate in the interest of educating the alien I thought one of us should buy it. She explained that was unnecessary since they have a hard skin but nonetheless I have been brought up not to play with my food, and certainly not to play with food and put it back, so I bought it.

After a pleasant sandwich I approached the Pomegranate with the plastic utensils supplied in the cafe. They were clearly no match for the tough skin on the fruit. I resorted to using my swiss army knife to cut through the leathery outer. After a while i got to some fruit. It was a little messy but tasted ok. By the end of the meal I noticed that I'd really not got far through eating it so I took it back to my desk to finish it off. This is where I made a concerted effort to finish it off quickly.

Quite some time later, after considerable cutting and splashing I made some headway on the fruit. My hands, knife, keyboard, cubicle and desk were splattered and my face was similarly covered. It looked as if I had just slaughtered and eaten a deer in my cube.

As I cleaned up I pondered the effect of spreading this fruit across American works cafes. I began to get suspicious about this fruit of Iranian origin.

My theory is that the Pomegranate will gain a reputation as the fruit that took down the US economy. I presume that the Iranian govenment is flooding the US economy with with cheap and plentiful supplies of this seemingly innocent fruit. It is quickly accepted under the "eat 5 bits of fruit or die a painful death" mantra of the US govenment and so gains a place in our lives. This is somewhat ironic because the amount of time required to eat a whole Pomegranate is so vast that we will not have time to eat other fruit, so will not make our 5 pieces a day and are likely to see a re-emergence of scurvy in the population, further stressing the healthcare system (such as it is). It seems that those Limys in England may have been onto something with their convenient fruit of choice, likely leaving the English clear of "pomegranate plague".

Malnutrion is only one of the multifarious effects of the fruit. The inordinate amount of time required to eat it will surely cause US worker productivity to dive and the economy to collapse.

Even the most innocent street bound pomegranate consumer will be left looking like they have been chewing on a fresh animal carcass which will surely lead to a steep rise in wrongful imprisonment. Other petty criminal activities in the US, such as murder, seem set to thrive in the predicted window of opportunity afforded by the mass police effort wrongfully arresting blooded pomegranate consumers.

I propose that the US government warn the public that the only safe condition in which to consume a pomegranate is whilst seated naked in the bath with a sharp knife, lots of running water and anti-splash surround. It should further be recommended that others avoid the vicinty of pomegranate consumption. The "5 fruits a day or die a painful death" should be amended to "5 fruits a day (but not pomegranates) or die a painful death - consider limes instead"

Sienna considered the impending doom from this conspiracy thus, "dead deer or not, aren't pomegranates yummy???"